News & Updates

The Sound Transit board’s Rider Experience Committee unanimously approved a motion that would create a program to retrofit Link light rail stations with fare gates, a move intended to bolster fare revenue, reduce vandalism, and increase safety on train platforms.

After months of uncertainty, Sound Transit now says it could deliver light rail to Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood by 2042. But that depends on whether the agency can find billions of dollars over the next seven years.

The Sound Transit Board of Directors voted Thursday to authorize a pair of contracts targeting the West Seattle Link Extension, fulfilling a promise to get that project moving quickly after a major update to the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) system plan last month.

More than half a million riders boarded light rail trains over a two-day period last week, setting ridership records on back-to-back days. Sound Transit reported roughly 280,000 riders boarded the light rail June 19, shattering the previous single-day record of 236,000 set just a day before.

Should Seattleites be despondent about Ballard light rail, in the wake of a newly adopted Sound Transit system expansion plan that leaves much of the long-promised line unfunded? The regional transit agency’s top leadership say no.

Terri Mestas, Sound Transit’s Deputy CEO in charge of capital project delivery, announced her departure from the agency Monday, effective in early July. Brad Owen will take over the role as Chief Capital Delivery Officer in an acting capacity.

Light rail ridership in the Seattle region has exploded following expansion of the 2 Line across Lake Washington, which connected Bellevue and Seattle for the first time on March 28. The boost was so pronounced that Sound Transit leapfrogged its peers to become the most ridden light rail system in the United States.

In a setback for thousands who want light rail to reach Ballard, the Sound Transit governing board voted Thursday to keep its austerity plan to build first from Sodo through downtown, and stop the line short at Seattle Center.

Sound Transit’s need to climb out of a nearly $35 billion shortfall, dramatized this month by proposals to drop or postpone promised light rail stations, will include stepped-up efforts to gather money.